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The Purple Blanket that Covers the State of Minnesota

This post has nothing to do with infertility but my heart feels like it’s something that I want to share. Today I want to talk about the purple blanket that covers my state of Minnesota. In a suburb of Minneapolis called Chanhassen with a population of 23,000 lived the musical icon, Prince. You couldn’t get any more burb than Chanhassen and for whatever reason it’s where our one and only Prince established his roots and called this city his home. Prince was a private person and everyone in the community respected him for that. He banked at the local bank in town, did his grocery shopping at Cub Foods, went to movies, bought records from the old skool record store and ate pancakes at local restaurants. If you wouldn’t have known who he was you would have thought he was just like any other person living in the burbs. So yes he was a musical icon but to all of the people here he was also our neighbor, someone who loved the state, his community and us fellow Minnesotans. We were his biggest fans because to us he was one of us. So when the news broke on Thurs morning of Prince’s passing our state went into mourning just like so many other places in the world. Shock and disbelief, we were all glued to the TV, internet and social media anything that would give us any information on what had happened to our hometown icon. The sorrow and heartbreak has put a purple blanket over our state of Minnesota.

Anyone who has seen the movie Purple Rain is familiar with the club First Avenue. I went there on Friday to see the memorial that is adorned right along the wall where Prince’s star among dozens of other amazing musicians is displayed. Hundreds of people lined the sidewalks taking pictures and paying their respect. Reporters listened intently to people who wanted to share their personal Price stories. It quickly spread that Friday everyone was supposed to wear purple in honor of Prince. Businesses took it a step further and changed their logo color for the day. The signage in downtown Minneapolis changed as well. Anything that could be purple was…lights and logos. Target Field was completely purple and the year 1999 was displayed on top of one of the light fixtures, It was absolutely breathtaking. Friday night I drove to Chanhassen, to Paisley Park. This is where Prince lived and where he had his recording studios. The all white building was fenced off and purple lights lit the sky. There were dozens of news trucks from all over lining the fence. Hundreds of cars were parked down the side streets and the people were making their trek to the memorial that had formed along the fence. Purple balloons, posters and flowers, oh so many flowers. I heard tidbits from people who had visited the memorial. Prince’s family had ordered pizza for all of the fans and at one point a van drove up and some of Prince’s family got out and gave the people in the crowd Prince memorabilia and hugged the fans thanking them for coming. Talk about Minnesota nice, makes me proud that I call this state my home.

On Saturday night I went to a bridge in Minneapolis called the 35W bridge. In memory of Prince the whole bridge was lit up in purple. It was the most amazing site and I captured the moment in some really good photos.

It’s been 5 days now and I still can’t stop listening to the tribute station. I feel honored that such an amazing person grew up in Minnesota and chose to spend his whole life here even when he had the opportunity to move onto bigger and better places. I grew up with Prince’s music and his songs will forever be in my heart. Good-bye my fellow Minnesotan thanks for sharing your talent with the world….you will be missed but never forgotten.